1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to automated crowd pattern classification systems and also to systems that automatically detect movement of groups of people and route persons based on crowd pattern and movement.
2. Background
The options available to a customer upon arrival at a shopping mall or other space where multiple destinations are to visited are many and complex. Often, a customer wishes simply to obtain a few items and leave as efficiently as possible. Some customers, for health reasons, may wish to minimize total walking distance. Others may wish to minimize time spent shopping. Although store maps are normally provided at such places, they do not provide any information about how long a visit to a particular store will take. For example, the lines may be long at one store and shorter at another. Stores belonging to a given class may be equally good in the eyes of the user, but the time spent determining which is least crowded may end up wasting more time than save if the lesser-crowded store were known in advance.
Surveillance systems are known in which images from remote cameras are gathered in a specific location and monitored by human observers. Also, automated systems for face-recognition, gesture recognition for control of presentation devices such as audio visual presentation equipment or a speaker-following video camera.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,712,830, which is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein in its entirety, describes a system for monitoring the movement of people in a shopping mall, vicinity of an ATM machine, or other public space using acoustical signals. The system detects acoustical echoes from a generator and indicates abnormal conditions. For example, movement may be detected at night in a secure area and an alarm generated. Also, by providing vertical threshold detection, the system may be used to distinguish adults and children. Movement may be detected by identifying patterns of holes and peaks in return echoes. The applications contemplated are detection of shoplifting, queues, running people, shopper headcount, disturbances or emergencies, and burglary.
There is a need in the art for a mechanism for detecting information about visitor movement and concentration at stores and exhibition-like events for purposes of helping visitors to determine the places they wish to visit and the routes they should take. Also, there is a need in the art for systems that will advise visitors as to how best to visit multiple locations within a large space, for example: stores in a shopping mall. Planning such a route is made more complicated than simply a minimum path problem by the traffic patterns and level of activity at the various retail locations and the visitor""s lack of knowledge about such impediments.
Briefly, one or more video cameras are placed in an occupied space so as to image scenes in which people gather or pass through. The scenes are analyzed to determine information such as the busiest stores or venues, the longest lines, the highest level of interest reflected, the speed of traffic flow, etc. This information is analyzed and used to help visitors to the space in some way. For example, a visitor to a trade show might wish to identify a particular set of exhibits to visit first to enable the visitor to avoid the biggest crowds. Alternatively, the visitor may wish to identify the exhibits that appear to be the most popular. A visitor to a shopping mall might wish to navigate among several retail establishments in the shortest time exploiting available information about people movement and checkout queues.
User interfaces are provided to allow users to indicate the activity they wish to engage in or other preference information and the system will display instructions to the user to carry them out. For example, the visitor wishing to go to the parts of the trade show with the lowest levels of activity may be shown a map of the entire layout, with indications of where the greatest traffic is currently found. A shopper could identify the stores to be visited, and the system could plan the most efficient route. The system may gather data to permit probabilistic prediction of occupancy patterns to help insure that that changes in conditions don""t destroy the value of its recommendations.
User interfaces may be fixed or portable. The navigation information may be delivered via a website, permitting users to employ their own wireless terminals for planning their visits to the spaces monitored by the video system. Data may be displayed as a real time map with overlay of symbols indicating crowd activity, traffic flow, congestion, queue length, and other information. Alternatively, a map may be distorted to illustrate the travel time between locations based on current traffic flow. Also, alternatively, the real time data may be displayed as a short message making recommendations based on indicated desires.
The invention will be described in connection with certain preferred embodiments, with reference to the following illustrative figures so that it may be more fully understood. With reference to the figures, it is stressed that the particulars shown are by way of example and for purposes of illustrative discussion of the preferred embodiments of the present invention only, and are presented in the cause of providing what is believed to be the most useful and readily understood description of the principles and conceptual aspects of the invention. In this regard, no attempt is made to show structural details of the invention in more detail than is necessary for a fundamental understanding of the invention, the description taken with the drawings making apparent to those skilled in the art how the several forms of the invention may be embodied in practice.